Habits of Highly Ineffective People-Humor

Ok, time for sharpening my skills:
1-Have a vague plan on what you want to do on a particular day
Then attempt to carry out the "plan" which hasn't materialized
2-Start many tasks at once: at the same time, put laundry away, clean the counter, put dinner in the crockpot, change the animal's cage. This way something is sure to remain unfinished
3-Wander away from the task at hand to "check email" and get lost on the computer and begin blogging
4-Overestimate the time it will take you to do something ie: call for an appt.
5-Rationalize that "it's now too late to do what I planned to do" and do nothing instead
6-Go grocery shopping forgetting to buy what you really needed
7-Be in a bad mood for the rest of the day and angry at the world because you didn't get anything accomplished.

Does This Happpen to You?

Cups, plates, empty bottles, wrappers, crumbs, popsicle sticks, socks, shin guards. Leave my living room (which is also where you enter the house) for a single day and that is what you are likely to find. Now is it just my kids who feel it's okay to litter the house this way? I have tried to enforce a no eating zone but it's a little late for that I fear. They respect the upstairs food rule, but the downstairs has always been where they have felt free to snack so it will be a whole other ball game to change that. Now perhaps if I put a garbage can in that room it would help. That I should definitely do. My husband says I should not clean it up but tell them to. So for the last two days I would go in and say "I see an orange peel, a yogurt container, a spoon, socks, etc." and the two younger ones would begin to debate with eachother who was responsible and who should clean it up. Eventually most of the things were removed. Still, this very morning I went in and found all those things mentioned at the beginning of this entry again. Something must change!

Procrastination Posting

Every morning I get up a full 2 hours before I need to leave the house. Then for the next 2 hours I try to put the house in order while getting 3 kids (and husband) out the door. Now, in the days when I was working full time, and before the addition, I would literally be leaving the house in a frenzy. Now I don't have to do that, but I feel that I should leave the house like a clean slate because I never know when inspectors and the like might be walking through. Today was one of those days when I did not finish everything and felt like coming back and finishing before going to work, but I knew that wouldn't be a good idea so I just sucked up the idea of crumbs everywhere and took off. Now today was my short and easy day so in my mind I figured I would get home and immediately start cleaning. In my mind, I would get home, change clothes, and start cleaning from the front of the house to the kitchen. Vacuumming, dusting, swiping surfaces, putting away things that did not belong....why then am I here writing this post instead? Good question. I guess because I'd rather write than clean. I am rebelling. But now I will go and clean for a set time of 45 minutes and see how that goes. Maybe I'll even post the results later.

How it looks to others

Monday night as I got out of my car to teach, I realized how messy it looked inside. There were a few bags of my teaching things, a few plastic shopping bags, a few coats, a few soccer balls, along with the new pocketbook I bought but never transferred my things to. The question is-why is all that stuff in my car? I could bring in the jackets and soccer uniform, put the soccer balls neatly into a bag, reorganize my teaching things so I don't have to drag around random bags of things, but I don't know. A few months ago I thought my car was pretty clean and a little kid commented that it was a mess. Having a few things around to me doesn't mean "mess" but it does to others. Meanwhile, that day I thought the car looked pretty clean because there wasn't much in it. It made me think about how I perceive things, and how I worry that others will perceive them. I still have that moment of panic when someone comes in my house that it isn't perfect or welcoming in some way. We got caught in an unfortunate holding pattern with our house, that some things aren't finished and we can't finish them without stepping on someone else's toes.

Update on clutter

Well it's been a while and thought I'd check in. I have to say that since my last post I'm much less tired and did start eating better and taking vitamins daily, which has helped. I've gone back to making lunches at night most days, and don't even feel the need for coffee in the afternoon. I have been making a conscious effort to choose tea at those times, I heard green tea in particular helps your metabolism. As for clutter, I have not been stressing too much about it lately. I am trying to vacuum daily, stay on top of laundry, put clothes away. Probably have not done enough as far as basic maintenance but everything looks better than it once did, thanks to more space.
Now, the next major project I still have to do is still go through the boxes that were put in the closet space because it is hard to find anything in the "before" last week could not locate the paper cutter that I love so much. Had to use an old fashioned scissor. It worked but that's only one thing on my list that is "somewhere" but which I can't locate.

How do you find time?

I have been trying to live by certain principles. Some are more successful than others. Since being introduced to flylady I always: Get up, shower, get dressed, wipe the bathroom, put in a load of laundry. I have been quite successful with keeping the sink empty also. And since getting my room I have consistently made the bed. There are other steps she recommends that I have not quite adhered to which are: choose your clothes for the next day, declutter a hotspot, spend 15 minutes decluttering and some of her daily missions. I get up at 6:00 on weekdays, and leave at 8:25. Seems like plenty of time but something is not working efficiently, and I think it's making lunch that has slowed me down. Today I seemed to have run out of bread so it took me a while to find 2 pieces for the oldest one's sandwich, meanwhile he was late for the bus. Also I had to make the tuna salad this morning. So I think I have to go back to my old successful method of making lunch the night before. The problem is at night I am soooo tired. How can I have more energy at night? I've started to eat better during the day and I think it's helping. And a little shot of java in the afternoon definitely helps. How bad is that really?

Last weekend I cleaned for a party which was more successful than usual because I have more rooms and since my home is in an almost finished state, it was okay to have 1 room as the designated clutter room. However, that room is supposed to become a child's bedroom sooner rather than later. So now my mission is to enter that room and decide where to put all the things I have collected from around the house. So I really have to start thinking things like-where should cameras and video cameras go? Where do I put-well everything in that room. Art supplies, school supplies, office supplies, exactly what room are they supposed to go in? It's nice to declutter but you have to keep some things. The question is where and I actually have no answer so that is why the things have been stuck sitting in that room for the past 2 weeks.